The Department of Defense’s just-released Quadrennial Roles and Missions Review Report has affirmed that cyberspace operations is a joint mission, quashing any notion that the Air Force might emerge as the lead player. (Full document; caution large file) Instead, the report states that “it is appropriate for each service to develop capabilities to conduct cyberspace operations.” That said, DOD acknowledges that more needs to be done to train and educate cyber warriors and to command and control cyberspace operations. To address these shortcomings, DOD says it has decided to develop “a professional cyberspace force” that will be able to influence and execute cyberspace operations “with the same rigor and confidence” as any other DOD mission. To mature this force, DOD intends to learn from the experiences of other government agencies, the private sector, and international partners, and apply innovative technology that they are already using. It is also changing joint professional military education curricula to include more classes and information on cyberspace, and it plans to double the number of computer network operations specialists that military CNO facilities currently produce, churning out 1,000 CNO-trained specialists per year.
Russia launched a counterspace weapon into the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite on May 16, U.S. officials said, as tensions between the two countries in space continue to ratchet up. U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood first disclosed the existence of the Russian counterspace weapon during a speech at the United…